1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to card wagering games, and more particularly to a modification of a cribbage game suitable for awarding multiples of a wager in the course of a casino play.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Casino business enterprises provide a variety of wagering games selected for their entertainment, ease of play, and potential of a large payout. In the best circumstances the selected game should easily arouse the potential players interest, and to avoid a quick onset of boredom the preferred game frequently includes more than one wagering opportunity. These desired attributes are also the attributes that rendered card games like poker, black jack and/or baccarat universally popular and in the course of a visit to a casino one will frequently find densely attended card tables on which these games are played.
Historically other card games have had equal success in their public following, but with lesser appreciation in a casino setting. For example the game of bridge, pinochle or hearts are each widely enjoyed amongst the population but have little attention in a casino. In each instance it is the lack of frequent betting opportunity that has limited the usefulness of these games in spite of their engrossing and attention compelling nature.
Even the games of poker, pinochle and baccarat have often been modified for multiplication of betting opportunities in the prior art. For example, a modification of the game of black jack is described in patent U.S. Pat. No. 5,720,484 issued to Hsu; a modification of a game of poker is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,901,958 issued to Andrews; U.S. Pat. No. 5,415,414 issued to Savage and others; and even solitaire is suggested as a multiple wagering mechanism in U.S. Pat. No. 5,653,635 to Breeding. While each is suitable for the purposes intended, the foregoing games are selected for their betting strategies and not for the intellectual stimulation associated with games like bridge or pinochle.
One card game that has withstood the test of time is the game of cribbage. The nomenclature of this game by itself speaks of venerable history and its persistence to this day speaks volumes of its intellectual stimulation aspects. Even more than bridge, pinochle or hearts, cribbage is wholly engrossing. Regrettably this attention garnering aspect has not been used successfully, and cribbage is equally absent with bridge, pinochle or hearts in a casino setting. The primary reason for this wholesale omission of cribbage in a casino is the lack of betting variety that it provides and the lack of structure to allow betting. Simply, the protracted scoring method entailed in this widely known card game offers few opportunities for betting and lacks the structure to allow betting. The game of cribbage is therefore wholly unappreciated in casinos. Accordingly modifications for improving the betting options for the game of cribbage are extensively sought and it is one such method that is described herein.
Accordingly it is the general purpose and an object of the present invention to provide a method for improving the betting options in the game of cribbage.
Other objects of the invention are to modify a game of cribbage in order to allow a variety of statistically determined betting payouts that are effected at the end of each hand rather than at the occurrence of some point score.
Yet further objects of the invention are to provide a method for playing cribbage in which the player is paid at the end of each hand in accordance with a pay table.
Briefly these and other objects are accomplished within the present invention by providing a modification to the game of cribbage in which up to seven players can participate. In a manner similar to five card cribbage, each of the players is dealt five cards, with two cards are then dealt as common cards. The players then each discard two of the cards from their own hands, but unlike the conventional cribbage game, these discarded cards are not used to form an additional hand. Instead the players are awarded a multiple of their bet in accordance with a pay table based on the point counting system based on cribbage. For example, if the player""s hand is less than 8 then the house wins the bet; if the players point count is 8 then a push results; if the player wins 9 to 11 points, then even money is paid on his or her bet; if the point count is 12 to 14 the odds are 2-1 and so on until the point count of 28 or better at which time a 250-1 odds are paid on the bet.
In each instance it is the three undiscarded cards that the player has in combination with the two exposed cards in the crib that determine the points in accordance with the conventional point system of the game of cribbage. This point system may be augmented by adding additional points for any flush, where a combination of five cards have the same suit; the cards in a player""s hand include a jack of the same suit as any one of the cards in the crib; and any combination of the foregoing two variants.
To further raise the interest in the game a bonus feature may be provided wherein a randomly predetermined hand, a combination or multiple of hands achieves an additional level of play in which the player is paid an additional amount. Such a bonus system may be part of a progressive betting arrangement or may be simply in based on a single hand.
The foregoing modified cribbage arrangement may be carried out with the assistance of a table covering designating the two crib areas for the two cards dealt therein, along with the seven player areas with their bet placements designated, each of the player areas also include a repetition of the pay table herein above specified. In this manner the familiar rules of cribbage are used in a casino setting, taking further advantage of the wide popularity of this game and its well-appreciated assessment of probabilities.